Sports trophies are collected at NBC in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday, April 11, 2013. Pictured are, from left, trophies from the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes, the Tour de France, the U.S. Open, the Players Championship and the French Open. less

Sports trophies are collected at NBC in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday, April 11, 2013. Pictured are, from left, trophies from the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes, the Tour de France, the ... more

STAMFORD -- NBC Sports has collected some of the biggest names in sports, from the Olympics to the National Football League to Formula One racing. And now it delivers its coverage from a state-of-the-art production facility in Stamford.

On April 11, NBC Universal turned its new sports production showcase into perhaps the greatest trophy case ever.

There, on one table in a production studio, sat some of the top trophies in tennis (the French Open), golf (the U.S. Open and The Players Championship), bicycling (the Tour de France) and horse racing (the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes).

And perhaps the most famous prize was in a studio down the hall, being filmed as the star of an upcoming series of programs -- the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup.

"The idea was to put a face on Championship Season by putting all of them in one place," said Brian Matthews, vice president of promotions for NBC Sports.

Championship Season is a confluence of title events that NBC covers in the spring and early summer, from the French Open to the horse racing's Triple Crown to the Stanley Cup playoffs. It's potentially 428 hours of sports programming across NBC's various sports networks, depending on how long the hockey playoffs last.

"You realize that these trophies have seen a significant amount of sports history," said John Miller, chief marketing officer for NBC Sports and Olympics.

If you think it is easy for a major television network to collect that hardware, think again. Not even the network that carries the Olympics can just pick up the phone and ask someone to send over their top prize.

"I think if we were just making cold calls, we just would have been shot down," Matthews said.

Instead, the NBC Sports team worked the phones, reaching out to a wide array of contacts to help amass the impressive collection.

"Every trophy kind of had its own little journey there, and when they were all there, we realized we had something of historical significance," Miller said.

Consider the journey of the Tour de France trophy. It came straight from the private collection of Greg LeMond, three-time winner of the world's most famous bicycling race and the only American to officially win the fabled event -- Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis were stripped of their titles for using performance-enhancing drugs.

"We started with the other Jon Miller (NBC Sports president of programming) and then worked through some channels internally at NBC," Matthews said. "That led to David Michaels."

Michaels is a top director and producer with the NBC Sports team. He is also the brother of Al Michaels, lead announcer on the network's Sunday night NFL broadcasts.

David Michaels put NBC in touch with LeMond's people. Yet it was not a LeMond associate who delivered the prize. LeMond himself flew from his Minnesota home to Stamford with his wife and daughter.

"It's one of only three, and it's very fragile, so he wanted to make sure it was taken care of properly," Matthews said.

When it comes to taking care of the Stanley Cup, Phil Pritchard is known as the "keeper of the cup." He sat next to his famous companion in a studio, answering questions about the prized chalice. His reflections will run as part of a series, likely during the NHL playoffs.

They would have an entire network ready to listen in Stamford. NBC announced in October 2011 that it was moving its sports operations to the city. They have transformed the former Clairol facility on Blachley Road into a state-of-the-art complex of studios, offices, control rooms, a news room and Central Park, as the employee lounge area is known.

The first employees moved into their new home on December 3 of last year. There are now 275 employees on site, and there will be more than 550 by June, when the facility will be fully staffed. They will handle sports operations for NBC, NBC Sports Network, the Golf Channel, 11 regional networks, the NBC Radio Network and various digital properties.

The employees already on site formed a steady procession past the various trophies (minus the Stanley Cup) Thursday, each stopping to have his or her picture taken with the storied hardware.